Boom And Bust Coal 2022
Boom and Bust Coal 2022 is a joint effort by Global Energy Monitor, CREA, E3G, Sierra Club, SFOC, Kiko Network, CAN Europe, LIFE, BWGED, BAPA, Waterkeepers Bangladesh and others.
Global coal plant capacity under development shrank 13% in 2021, according to Global Energy Monitor’s eighth annual survey of the coal plant pipeline, but steeper cuts are needed to achieve climate goals.
GEM’s “Boom and Bust Coal 2022” report finds that after rising in 2020 for the first time since 2015, total coal power capacity under development declined 13% last year, from 525 gigawatts (GW) to 457 GW, a record low. 34 countries have new coal plants under consideration, down from 41 countries in January 2021.
Coal’s decline
Outside China, the global coal fleet shrank for the fourth year in a row. More than half (56%) of the 45 gigawatts of newly commissioned coal capacity was in China. This graph shows China’s share of coal under development increased in 2021 by 7% to 55% (251 GW), now accounting for over half of the capacity under development in the world for the first time.
But the world still has more than 2,400 coal-fired power plants operating in 79 countries, for a total of nearly 2,100 GW of capacity. An additional 176 GW of coal capacity is under construction at more than 189 plants, and 280 GW is in pre-construction at 296 plants. In 2021, the operating coal fleet grew by a net 18.2 GW, a post-Covid rebound in a year that saw a slowdown in coal plant retirements.
One step forward, one step back
Global coal commissioning and retirements and the net change and the net change without China between 2000–2021. In 2021, newly commissioned capacity in China nearly offset coal plant retirements in the rest of the world.
The directive for a fighting chance at a livable climate is clear – stop building new coal plants and retire existing ones in the developed world by 2030, and the rest of the world soon after. Progress must happen faster to meet the clear demands of climate science for a radical coal phase down within this decade.
Tallying up progress and the gap to 1.5°C
The IPCC says that coal use needs to fall by 75% by 2030 for a 1.5°C pathway. But business as usual means that while coal use eventually declines, current pledges are not enough to keep pace with a 1.5°C scenario.
The Boom and Bust Coal 2022 report also finds:
- Japan, South Korea, and China all pledged to end public support for new international coal plants, followed by a commitment from all G20 countries ahead of COP26. With these pledges, there is essentially no significant international public financier remaining for new coal plants.
- In 2021, the amount of U.S. coal capacity that retired declined for the second consecutive year, from 16.1 GW in 2019, to 11.6 GW in 2020, to an estimated 6.4 GW to 9 GW in 2021. To meet national energy and climate goals, continued momentum away from coal needs to accelerate.
- The European Union’s 27 member states retired a record 12.9 GW in 2021, with the most retirements in Germany (5.8 GW), Spain (1.7 GW), and Portugal (1.9 GW). Portugal became coal free in November 2021, nine years before its targeted 2030 phase-out date.
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